They didn’t dislike what Brian Burke was doing with the Toronto Maple Leafs. They just don’t like Brian Burke.

For “they’’ insert this name: George Cope.

Doesn’t ring a bell? That’s funny, actually.

Cope is president and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada, which jointly with Rogers now owns 75 per cent of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. The corporate consortium — Megabuckszilla — took custodianship of Canada’s most illustrious sports property from the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund last summer.

Cope wanted Burke out, sources have told the Star. Cope got his way. Didn’t like the cut of Burke’s jib, his personality, the perennially loosened tie, the combustible temper, the maverick independence, the swagger or the mouth that so often roared. The “branding’’ wasn’t right.

Thus, early Tuesday morning, Burke had his ticket punched as Leaf president and general manager. The mightiest of local sports executives has fallen – been felled — with one powerful swing of the axe, barely four years, non-playoff years, into his tenure.

And yet again the Leaf franchise has chosen to hurtle down the road most foolishly taken: immeasurably disruptive on the eve of a shortened NHL season launching, staggeringly lousy in judgment, inexplicable in bad timing.

Burke never saw it coming. Tuesday night, he watched the Marlies play in the company of assistant GM Dave Nonis, a man who has more than once waded into Burke’s wake, mentored through many years by BB in the nuances of hockey management. They are tight friends and symbiotic professional allies, Nonis the subdued yin to Burke’s bombastic yang.

One sleep later, Burke was summoned to a meeting at the Air Canada Centre by MLSE president and COO Tom Anselmi. Also in attendance were minority owner Larry Tanenbaum, distraught, and Dale Lastman, an MLSE director. Burke out; Nonis in.

If Leaf Nation was stunned once news of his dismissal trickled out, you can only imagine how Burke took the news. Exiting the building shortly afterwards, he disappeared, his whereabouts known only to a handful of intimates. “He’s gone underground for a few days,” a confident told the Star. “He’s shocked. And disappointed.’’

This berserk decision was not, of course, worn by Cope when the Leafs hastily called their afternoon press conference. He wasn’t even in the jam-packed room. Instead, it was poor Anselmi trotted out before the cameras to make the formal announcement, a clearly overwhelmed Nonis sitting alongside.

As reporters shot out their questions, this is what became abundantly clear: Unless everybody involved is lying through their teeth, the jettisoning of Burke isn’t designed to change a damn thing of substance. Nonis gave every indication of staying the course set by his predecessor. The team won’t be reinvented once GMs are permitted to start wheeling and dealing again. Robert Luongo might yet be Toronto-bound, but purported disagreement over that possibility was not a tipping factor in this final convulsion.

It wasn’t one iota about hockey and the legitimate criticisms that can be leveled at Burke for his failure to alter Toronto’s hockey fortunes. Burke was under the belief he had at least one more season to knead a competitive club out of the Leafs.

It was instead about an aversion to Burke’s style and demeanor.

Since last August, Anselmi revealed, there have been ongoing evaluations of Burke as the face of the Leafs by himself and the three-headed ownership, although surely Anselmi would have but a minor say in the matter. It’s unclear whether Burke had knowledge of these high-level discussions. If so, he never indicated concern or let on that he felt threatened. But knives were being twisted behind his back – proof that nothing has changed in the duplicitous culture of upper Maple Leaf hierarchy.

“They didn’t click,’’ said one insider about the relationship between Burke and Cope.

Could such a dramatic shift in the front office really come down to so arbitrary a character judgment? Seems so.

There were undoubtedly genuine grounds for firing Burke — he remains as a “senior consultant’’— a man who rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Yet hardly any of those were cited Wednesday as explanation. Instead, a palpably uncomfortable Anselmi spoke obliquely about some kind of dissonance between Burke and the board. “It’s not the product of any one incident or any one thing. It was really a conversation where the three shareholders and myself came to a decision.’’

He added: “Without getting into the specifics, we went through this process. You’ve got new owners that bought into a company, that are evaluating things, people, the organization. The relationship between the general manager and ownership is an interesting one, it’s complex and it’s unique. Whether it’s going to work or not is about a whole bunch of things.’’

Anselmi, however, referred repeatedly to the process that Burke began, the general approval for his approach, albeit with dismay over missing the playoffs again and again and again and again. Mystifyingly, he spoke about a vague Burke tenor that was identified as not a good fit with new ownership. “Really, the leadership change is more about a tone and a voice of leadership. Then it is about changing gears and going in a different direction.’’

To be clear: This is not a life and death matter. Burke knows the difference, to his eternal sadness.

Three years ago, Burke lost a beloved son, 21-year-old Brendan, in a highway accident. More recently — the news broken by a newspaper columnist, much to Burke’s fury — his second marriage unraveled. There are young children involved.

Such back-to-back personal wallops took their toll, with some scandalous and quite ridiculous rumours out there, little of it true to my knowledge. Asked directly if gossip about Burke’s private affairs contributed to the termination, Anselmi adamantly denied it.

“It had nothing to do with Brian’s personal life, not at all.’’

But these have been hard times. Burke told a friend last fall, sounding bewildered: “I must have been a terrible person in a previous life. Maybe I’m paying for it now.’’

In this life, he was, is, far from a terrible person. In my experience, Burke has always been fair and honest and accessible. Perhaps too forthright, for some people’s tastes, and clearly uncompromising, a blunt instrument. A brilliant hockey man, though, with a Stanley Cup to prove it. But that brilliance may have forsaken him in Toronto, or wasn’t given enough time to manifest itself.

Four years before the mast, now tossed over the side.

And no one will speak truth to justify.

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